by Ross Turner
Gregory too, Jen noticed, was overjoyed, and his panicked sweats had dried up almost instantly.
The speeches continued after that, as they were bound to. Greg joined Deacon once again and delivered an impromptu thank you, drawing heavily on his extensive vocabulary in an attempt to voice Deacon’s overwhelming kindness.
Others came up to speak too, many of whom were among the richest in the room. And it seemed they had all donated vast sums of money to Greenway over the years, and had attended most, if not all, of Deacon’s exhibitions.
After that, once the speeches and the many bottles of champagne had all run their course, the night began to draw gradually to a close.
As the hours pressed on and the guests began to filter out, Jen felt sleep beckoning her ever closer. She was exhausted, as was her mother, but on the contrary, Deacon seemed to be not in the least bit weary, and was as alert as ever.
In the darkness of the car, zipping by streetlights and bright signs as they hurtled home, the quiet music from the radio quickly lulled Jen into an exhausted slumber, all the while her thoughts upon Deacon and his exhibition and indeed how immensely proud she was of him.
Such thoughts to drift off to sleep to, for a change, were a gladly met relief for young Jennifer, and she welcomed them contentedly as the gentle rocking of the car cast her off into her overactive subconscious.
Unforeseen Shadows
An abrupt, harsh dip in the road startled Jen awake all of a sudden, and she stirred groggily from her slumber to see trees, fence lines, drystone walls, and the occasional cottage flashing by in the darkness.
She glanced back briefly and saw that Dyra was still asleep.
“Where are we?” She whispered, rubbing her aching neck wearily.
“About ten minutes away…” Deacon replied in an instant, throwing her a quick smile across the car, always so alert.
“Are you okay?” Jen asked, keeping her voice hushed. “Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Deacon replied simply, reaching over with his left hand and entwining his fingers with Jen’s in her lap.
She gripped his hand with both of hers, feeling his warmth radiating out even from that meagre touch.
He never seemed tired. He very rarely rested. Jen didn’t quite understand it. But then, she supposed, it wasn’t really a bad thing.
“I’ve had a lovely time today…” Jen mused aloud then, her words still very quiet and her voice low, as if they were just barely more than a thought.
“I’m glad.” Deacon replied, nodding his head and grinning. “I hope so…”
“It’s really something…” Jen continued to muse, and Deacon glanced across at her briefly through the dim light.
“What’s that?” He questioned.
“You…” Jen responded without hesitation, and she immediately found herself blushing. “Your art…” She quickly corrected, though she hadn’t been lying in the first place. “Your donations, your support for Greenway…I’ve never seen anything like it before…”
“Well, thank you…” Deacon replied, smirking so cheekily that Jen could tell even in the dim light the mischievous look in his eyes.
She couldn’t help but flush hot under the collar, and though there was no way she could be sure whether he’d noticed or not, she had to assume that he had.
Soon enough Deacon slowed his car and they pulled to a steady stop outside Keepers Cottage. Dyra stirred in the seats behind and yawned loudly.
“Are we back…?” She mumbled in a groggy voice.
“Yes, mom.” Jen chuckled in reply, opening the car door and stepping out into the cold air of the night.
It bit at her exposed face hungrily and had the feel of menace about it, even as it swarmed invisibly upon the three of them.
Then Deacon was by her side, holding the door open for Dyra, though he too looked stiff and cautious, and glanced here and there warily at the lurking shadows all around.
Jen’s mother stepped wearily out of the car, grunting slightly as she did so.
“Thank you, Deacon.” She managed, but he only smiled in response and closed the car door slowly behind her, his eyes everywhere all at once.
However, despite his keen gaze, he could see nothing in the darkness all about them, and the only thing that illuminated the deep night was the lantern that hung beside the door of their cottage. Dyra had lit it before they had left that morning, and now, for some reason, Deacon was very glad she had done.
Even a little light was better than none at all.
Nonetheless, he still felt as though there were eyes upon them, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck, warning him that they weren’t alone.
Jen shuddered and her heart thumped heavily against her chest.
“Deacon…” She whispered, her voice so quiet and terrified that he only just about heard her.
Her hands instinctively reached out and grasped at his arm, but when they found it, she could feel how tense he was, and that only consolidated her fears.
It took him a moment or two to reply.
“Come on…” He whispered in return, placing his arm around Jen and steering her protectively towards the lighted doorway.
Only then, already at the doorstep, did Dyra turn and realise that something was amiss.
“What’s wrong?” She asked them, her voice piercing the cold darkness as if she had yelled her question.
But they didn’t get chance to respond.
Suddenly a black figure lunged forward from the shadows, appearing from nowhere with huge, groping hands reaching out in the darkness.
Before she could get away, or even scream, horrible hands were upon Jen, clutching hungrily at her arm furthest from Deacon.
His grip was slimy and his fingers probing, leeching the very life from her just at the touch.
“It’s been a long time, Jenny…” His disgusting voice slithered through the dark of the night, reaching Jen’s ears and grating on them in a way that made her cringe and recoil from it.
The very sound of it made her physically sick to the stomach.
Time seemed to stand still.
But even as Jen tried to wretch, repulsed horribly, she let out a scream so despairing and desolate that she could have deafened a wailing banshee.
All three of them, Deacon, Dyra, and even the snake of a man clutching at her arm, winced and faltered at the ear-splitting, horrified sound.
Deacon was the first to react.
He had no idea what was going on, or who this man was, but he responded in the only way that seemed appropriate.
He doubled his hand into a fist, solid and unbreakable, and in a split second delivered a shattering blow across the man’s face. He may just have been a silhouette in the pitch black of the night, but it was still more than enough for Deacon to see, and the young man’s blow struck true.
The man in the shadows released his grip in an instant, and was sent reeling back into the gloom with a sharp, pained cry.
Jen’s arm, now freed, found Deacon in an instant, and clung to him desperately, but it wasn’t over, and he knew it.
He had to take control.
“Inside! Now!” He barked.
His voice was rough and his command firm, but it was on point, and the three of them piled immediately into Keepers cottage before the man, whoever he was, had a chance to recover.
Slamming the door behind him, Deacon whipped his gaze to the windows.
Dyra was panicking, darting all over the place.
Jen was terrified, silent and shaking.
“Windows! Back door! Check they’re all locked!” Deacon instructed with no time to waste, as he turned the key in the front door and locked it. “Now!!” He commanded, startling Dyra into action.
“Okay!” She obeyed instinctively, racing immediately around each of the windows and the back door on the ground floor, checking they were all secured.
She soon returned, breathless and flushed.
“All done!�
�� She reported, but Deacon didn’t respond.
He was too focused on Jen.
She was sat on the bottom step of the stairs with her head buried in her hands, muttering continuously to herself, rocking slightly as she mumbled.
“Jen…” Deacon attempted, over and over. “Jen!” He pleaded, trying desperately to get her attention. “Please Jen…” He begged. “Talk to me! What’s going on!? Who is he!?”
But Jen didn’t answer, and she only hid herself deeper in her own hands, trying as best she could to just block it all out.
That’s all she’d been doing so far.
But you can’t escape the past.
“Get him away…” Jen whispered futilely into her own palms. “Get away. Get him away…” She repeated, over and over.
“Jen!” Deacon urged. “Who is he!?”
But then Deacon glanced up at Dyra, his eyes desperate, and he saw that she was ghostly white.
“Dyra?” He breathed then, knowing in an instant that she knew. “Who is he!?” Deacon pressed. “What’s going on!?”
“It can’t be…” She started, faltering almost immediately.
“Dyra!” Deacon snapped again, but it was instead Jen who answered.
She exploded up to her feet in a fit of panic and practically threw herself at Deacon.
“It’s him!!” She cried despairingly, her voice croaking and breaking with fright. “He’s back!! He’s waited all this time!! Now he wants me!!”
Collapsing to the floor in a shuddering, heaving wreck, Jen’s strength drained from her and her legs buckled, unable to hold her through fear alone.
“Who!?” Deacon begged.
“Oh my God…” Dyra whispered then, finally breaking from her trance.
“Dyra!!” Deacon cried, exasperated now. “What is it!?”
But Jen’s mother was immediately on the phone, panicking even more as she called through to the emergency number.
“Hello! Yes! The police! Officer Mahoney!” She answered suddenly, as the responder at the other end answered. “This is Dyra Williams! I’m Jennifer Williams’ mother!”
Deacon could do nothing but wait, holding Jen closely as she shook like a leaf, muttering to herself once again.
“Yes, that’s it!” Dyra suddenly said, her breaths and her words fast and sharp. “We need help! He’s here! He’s right outside! He’s just tried to take my daughter!!”
Suddenly Dyra hung up, as if she had cut the conversation off midway through. But as she rushed over to Jen, throwing her arms around her and sobbing aloud, she tried to talk through her tears.
“They’re coming! They’re coming, sweetheart! Don’t worry! They’re coming!”
But the cold, harsh reality of it all was dawning slowly upon Jen, and even as Deacon wrapped her up, still shaking in his arms, and she felt his strong heartbeat as she laid her head against his chest, she knew this was it.
She folded her arms up so her hands were by her shoulders, and his embrace seemed to envelope her completely, holding her closer than she ever thought was possible.
Her senses were returning to her now, very slowly, as her blind panic slipped away ever so slightly, though it could return at any moment.
She couldn’t believe it had come to this.
Clare had been right.
Even bloody Caroline had been right.
Tonight, whether she survived or not, Deacon would find out the truth.
There was a cruel, ravenous knock at the door, and the sound lingered in the air longingly, reaching out for what it hungered for so dreadfully.
Predator and Prey
The man stalked silently through the night, keeping only to the shadows, moving as a silhouette slipping from one black crevice to another, leaving behind not a trace.
He was well practiced at this.
He had done it many times before.
Leaving one hand trailing behind him, scraping and knocking hungrily on doors and tapping softly on window panes, he knew the sound would drive little Jenny insane.
His free hand tingled then, grabbing his attention, for he could still feel the sense of her warm touch on his skin. Lifting his hand slowly, like a dreadful ritual offering, he ran his tongue along his aching palm, licking it like a wild animal, tasting Jen’s fear.
The flavour sent his senses haywire and he growled deeply in the back of his throat, and the sound was unmistakeably yearning and insatiable.
Unable to control himself any longer, barely able to hold himself back as it was, he smashed his clenched fists against the door, shaking it on its very hinges.
A terrified scream wailed out from inside Keepers Cottage, which he had watched for so long now, and his hunger grew and evolved into something else entirely.
He knew what was coming.
He had felt it before.
And he loved it.
“I can hear you, Jenny!!” He called out, ceasing his hammering fists just long enough to hear her whimper in fear.
An evil smile crept across his face, hidden and disguised by the night.
“COME ON JENNY!!” He bellowed then, his voice deep and rasping and ravenous. “I WANT YOU!!”
With every sound that he made Jen winced visibly, jumping and startling and crying out in horror. Her breaths were quick and sharp and shallow, full of awful fright.
He battered and pounded at the door, rattling it on its hinges as if it were about to burst, and once again Jen shrieked like a howling banshee.
Her desperate cry was followed almost immediately by footsteps on the stairs, and Jen set shaky eyes upon her older sister practically throwing herself down the staircase.
Clare was bleary eyed, as if she’d only just awoken, and clattered down to her sister so fast that she almost fell head over heels.
Forgetting at long last the feud they’d had, she rushed immediately to Jen’s side, desperately trying to calm her screaming.
“Jen!” She cried, but her younger sister could not reply through her sobs.
“I can’t wait any longer!!” He bellowed from outside. “I NEED YOU!!”
Jen cowered away and Clare comforted her as best she could, ignoring all that he was saying and focusing instead on her younger sister, in absolute bits before her.
“YOU LOOK JUST LIKE HER!!”
That was it.
In an instant, Clare snapped.
He had yet again gone too far.
The sheer, vile abuse that she hurled through the air then, her angry words like sharpened razor blades were enough to curdle the blood. The foul insults that she screeched were not to be trifled with.
But, they seemed to go unheard, and the man stalking them from outside did not reply.
In fact, all went silent, as Jen and Clare awaited his response.
But it was an answer that never came.
He stopped shouting.
The door finished rattling.
Jen ceased her screaming.
In fact, everything seemed to come to a complete standstill, and an eerie quiet settled upon the cottage.
Deacon glanced around warily, wondering what on Earth would happen next.
Jen whimpered slightly, overtaken wholly by panic. Deacon wrapped his arms around her again, cradling her as gently and as comfortingly as he could, though he stayed ever vigilant.
Clare crept through into the darkened kitchen, making not a sound as she moved, silent as a ghost. She peered out of the window, staying as inconspicuous as she could, but after a few moments she recoiled gradually back, looking at her sister and shaking her head slowly.
Suddenly the sound of shattering glass exploded in their ears from somewhere at the back of the house, and Deacon sprung immediately into action.
“Wait here!” He instructed, darting through the downstairs rooms in the dim light.
His footsteps stopped, but before he could relay what he’d found, a large rock came sailing in through the kitchen window. It shattered with terrifying force and fragmented glass was sent f
lying in every direction.
Jen screamed again, recoiling back with her mother, both covering their faces.
Clare didn’t bother.
The glass, like the cold, seemed not to affect her, even as it sprayed all over her.
Then, in barely a moment, Deacon was back, breathing sharply.
“Same at the back…” He reported, but then again he was cut short, and a huge bang reverberated through the house, followed by a sharp crash.
Instantly, Deacon whipped round and flew yet again to the back of the house, but he stopped barely halfway, taking slow, steady steps back towards them, still stood in the entrance hallway, his eyes wide and fearful.
The back door lay on the floor, its hinges buckled and broken, ruined.
“He’s…” Deacon started, though, once again, he didn’t get to finish.
A low, possessed humming echoed through the dark rooms of Keepers Cottage, casting fear into their hearts like nightmares laden with dread.
“Oh my God…” Jen breathed, and her words shook and quivered awfully, her voice barely a whisper.
The sound seemed to echo all around, bouncing impossibly in every direction, and none of them had any idea where it was coming from.
An evil grating noise followed the humming, grinding with deadly intention upon their ears.
Deacon moved Jen and Dyra slowly to the staircase, trying desperately not to make a sound. But, as is always the way, that was near impossible in the dead of the night.
Still he had not appeared.
Pointing urgently up the stairs, Deacon quickly ushered Jen and Dyra to climb.
However, the first step Jen took, anxious and rushed, creaked loudly and obviously throughout the house, and in an instant he was there.
“GO!” Deacon bellowed, reaching out into the darkness and grappling with the silhouette of a man, fighting with all his might to keep him away from Jen.
Dyra forced her youngest daughter up the stairs in front of her, following Deacon’s barked command in nothing but blind panic.
Behind them Deacon struggled against the man in the shadows, and Clare just stood by watching, helpless, unable to do anything at all.